Innovacion

Innovacion develop economic options for London's Royal Docks

As part of a Regeneris team Innovacion have been commissioned by Newham Council, Design for London and the London Development Agency to develop and appraise the strategic economic options for investment priorities in the Royal Docks over the next 25 years. The economic study will explore development scenarios and options based around the current array of economic assets and identify the supporting infrastructure required to bring forward sustainable development. This commission forms the initial stage in the production of the Royals Development Framework which runs through to March 2011.

Coulsdon's Economic Future reviewed by Innovacion

Innovacion and EDP Associates have been commissioned by Croydon Council to review the economic, demographic, property and commercial conditions of Coulsdon which is a district centre in the south of the Borough. The study aims to set a baseline for any future local regeneration and development strategy and, in particular, guide any discussions with strategic partners around the redevelopment options for the nearby Cane Hill site.

Outer London - handle with care

While the diverse nature of Outer London has been rightly highlighted in the new consultation draft of the London Plan, strategies for accelerating its economic growth in tough times will have to be carefully handled with care.

Rumfitt A; "Outer London - handle with care"; Town & Country Planning (December 2009)

Download Outer London - handle with care (TCPA December 2009)

Andy Rumfitt appointed to Yorkshire Design Review Service

Andy Rumfitt has been appointed as a panel member of the new Yorkshire and Humberside Design Review Service being established under the Integreat Yorkshire programme which is run by Yorkshire Forward.  

The Design Review Service panel will discuss projects in the context of criteria of good design and provide views of how well or otherwise that the project addresses those criteria. The aim is to assist the project team by providing useful feedback to enable improvements in their design proposals.

The Design Review Service will provide advice on a wide range of built environment issues including new buildings, masterplans, green spaces, urban frameworks and other planning and spatial strategies.

Croydon and Gatwick: Competitive Opportunities and Risk

For Croydon Council Innovacion is considering the strategic options and issues in developing the functional relationship between Croydon and Gatwick including its economic hinterland. Risks to Croydon’s attraction and retention of firms were considered along with its sectoral strengths and the required supporting infrastructure.

TCPA Sustainable Communities and Planning Conference: 1 Dec 2009

This conference celebrates the Centenary of the Housing and Town Planning Act 1909 and addresses the planning challenges of today. As John Burns, President of the Local Government Board, said, the 1909 Act would ‘provide a domestic condition for the people in which their physical health, their morals, their character, and their whole social condition can be improved’. While ‘morals’ are now left to those outside the planning system, it is still through planning that housing and social conditions can be improved, and the new, big challenge is, of course, climate change.

Download TCPA Annual Conference 1 Dec 2009 Brochure

People or Proximity: Where does growth come from in outer London?

As a successful retail centre in a great location on the Thames, Kingston is the desirable home for highly skilled workers. Access to high quality environments (parks, river) and the transport network (Heathrow, Gatwick, roads) also add to the attractive locational mix. And Kingston has the high house prices and waiting lists for good state and private schools to prove it.  

Retail aside Kingston’s relative specialisation in business services aligns with a key international strength of London. Parts of this specialisation will be in providing local business services. In Kingston, the usual range of local accountants and solicitors will service the needs of the local business community and a burgeoning army of freelancers, many home based, as well as benefitting from a high level of passing trade. Other parts will be linked to London’s globally competitive strength in business and professional services. These are built on an extensive and deep labour market across the 21 million residents in the Greater South East.

Two thirds (64%) of the residential workforce in Kingston are managers and professionals compared to just 42% in Croydon. This is a non-trivial difference. Being able to source highly skilled local labour is a key comparative advantage for the firms in Kingston. And goes some way to explain the relatively low level of out commuting for such a residential part of outer London. The make-up of a local area’s population including its occupational profile has a big impact on long term economic development.

Over the other side of outer London different drivers are at work. Despite its relatively poor river crossing options, north Bexley has developed as a relatively (in a London context) cost effective location for a range of near market functions. As time really is money Michael Porter and others identified this proximity advantage many years ago. These locations offer potential as the profitable base for time sensitive activities. So in Belvedere we have a concentration of food logistics operations such as ASDA, Londis and Lidl, office support services such as Viking Direct, Iron Mountain and Office Depot plus construction and printing. Here the most important competitive advantage is proximity to a very large consumer market plus the central London concentration of office functions. Without this near market logic other economic activities which are exposed to international cost pressures such as the manufacture of cables are very much history.

Understanding the underlying drivers explains how a local economy got to where it is today. But it also sets parameters on where it can go tomorrow.

Andy Rumfitt appointed as a Delivering Design Quality Enabler for Transform South Yorkshire

Andy Rumfitt has been appointed as a Delivering Design Quality Enabler for Transform South Yorkshire. Andy will bring his 18 years of economic development experience from many different areas and geographies to help the largest Housing Market Renewal area to champion design, build capacity, develop projects and disseminate best practice.  Including Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham Transform South Yorkshire covers 130,000 dwellings and almost 300,000 residents.

Innovacion study for Outer London Commission published

Innovacion's analysis of eight key locations in outer London produced for the LDA has been published by the Mayor of London's Outer London Commission. Using a range of information sources the study considered various economic characteristics of Croydon, Stratford, the Heathrow Area, Brent Cross, Wembley, Kingston, Woolwich and the Upper Lee Valley. These included economic scale, economic profile and performance, business and skills base, property (current supply), planning (future supply) and economic catchments.

View the study on the Outer London Commission website

Download Key Locations in Outer London Published Version

Andy Rumfitt appointed to the TCPA Policy Council

At last night's AGM Andy Rumfitt was elected to the Town and Country Planning Association's Policy Council.

The TCPA campaigns for the reform of the UK’s planning system to make it more responsive to people’s needs and aspirations and to promote sustainable development.

The TCPA occupies a unique position, overlapping with those involved in the development industry, the environmental movement and those concerned with social justice. The Association prides itself on leading-edge, radical thinking and problem-solving.

Its objectives are to:

• Secure a decent, well designed home for everyone, in a human-scale environment combining the best features of town and country
• Empower people and communities to influence decisions that affect them
• Improve the planning system in accordance with the principles of sustainable development

When a hub is not a hub

Launched yesterday the Mayor's proposals for the London Plan give an indication how the Spatial Development Strategy for London is likely to develop in the future. Economically this comes at a tricky time when it would be easy to be distracted while getting used to the "new normal" - as Lee Shostak has correctly termed where we are now.

The sub-regional conundrum continues.  Despite abandoning a rather peculiar sub-regional division of London that removed central London (the so called pizza slices and about as memorable) the new sub-regional split puts Tower Hamlets and therefore Canary Wharf in East London.  I'm not sure any of the occupiers of Canary Wharf, which is more Manhattan than anywhere else in London, see themselves as anything else but a (better) part of the Central Activity Zone.

The proposals also give some indication of the emerging policy for Outer London and the impact of the Mayor's Commission in getting a greater a better deal for the suburbs.  The mooted hubs (and at one point super hubs) have become "strategic Outer London development centres".  This is probably due to the existence of the fairly elaborate town centre hierarchy in London and how different the four suggested potential hubs locations are.  

The loosely defined Heathrow area is a very specialised and enormous airport economy. It is also congested so there is little appetite for increased development. Brent Cross is currently a regional shopping centre that if bolted together with Cricklewood could, on paper at least, become a Metropolitan Centre. Despite being a "pillar" of the London economy and touted as the seventh largest "city" in the UK, Croydon has been losing employment for the last 15 to 20 years to growing centres outside the Green Belt and has a mediocre office stock. Which leaves Stratford. With its vast development potential and planned investment, Stratford probably is closest to having the capacity to become a hub, genuinely grow jobs on the back of its proximity to the Central Activity Zone and have a real "polycentric" or spatial economic impact on the London economy.  By avoiding a "one size fits all" approach to developing these strategic Outer London development centres the Mayor is accepting the extent of these differences.  Though, on the flip side, the danger of allowing limitless local flexibility could leave people asking exactly what the plans are.  It is a tricky balance.

Barking up the wrong tree

The halting of the development of the light rail extension needed for 11,000 new homes at Barking Riverside throws up a number of questions about our appetite for seeing through major developments in urban brownfield locations.

In November 2008 the Mayor of London halted the public inquiry process for the proposed Docklands Light Rail (DLR) extension to Dagenham Dock to give time for DLR to negotiate with the Mayor’s office and the Government over who will fund the ongoing developmental costs as well as the final £500 million bill. This pause gives the opportunity to reflect on what the DLR scheme’s progress to date tells us about our appetite for bringing forward major urban developments and transport infrastructure schemes, and what this means for the policy that espouses such an approach.

Rumfitt A; "Barking up the wrong tree"; Town & Country Planning (March 2009)

Download Barking up the wrong tree (TCPA March 2009) 

How Tower Hamlets successfully integrated their Local Development Framework with their Community Plan

Following the withdrawal of their first Local Development Framework Core Strategy in 2006, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets has linked a new version with their Community Plan.  Planners have been closely involved in revising the Community Plan for the area to 2020 and turning the Local Development Framework into the delivery plan for the vision of creating "One Tower Hamlets" and improving social cohesion.  The innovative spatial idea is re-inventing the 24 hamlets of the Borough through detailed place plans whose delivery will be managed through the Local Strategic Partnership.

Read more in Innovacion's case study in IDeA's Partnership and Places library

Innovacion advise Transport for London on objective setting for river crossings

Innovacion have been appointed to advise Transport for London on objective setting and the economic benefits of river crossings in the context the revised Mayor's Transport Strategy (MTS), the London Development Agency's draft Investment Plan and the revision process for the London Plan.

Innovacion retained to advise London Development Agency on Outer London economy

Innovacion have been retained by the London Development Agency to assist with the further development of policy relating to the economy of Outer London and its economic issues, challenges and opportunities.  Innovacion are helping to develop the evidence base including design of summary maps (which were produced by Black Hat) and support the London Development Agency’s input into the Mayor’s Outer London Commission and review of the London Plan.

Innovacion assesses socio-economic impact of redevelopment of Rathbone Market in Canning Town

On behalf on the English Cities Fund Innovacion have been retained to baseline the local socio-economic conditions and to estimate the social, economic and other benefits of the proposed £118 million redevelopment of Rathbone Market in Canning Town.  The development is a joint venture between English Cities Fund and Newham Council.

Atkins and Innovacion secure £5.9 million from LSC for Olympic Construction Training Centre

Since March 2007 Atkins and Innovacion have been retained to provide a wide range of advisory and professional services to bring forward and develop a Construction Training Centre on a site in Leyton funded by Waltham Forest Council and the London Development Agency with support from the Olympic Delivery Authority, Learning and Skills Council and Construction Skills.  Ths work culminated with the LSC approving an in principle application for £5.9 million in capital funds to develop the construction training centre.  Services have included:

• Detailed appraisal of four options and five year business plan including funding review
• Project management and flexible client support
• Market review and specification development including consultations with over 20 partners
• Prospectus development and procurement support through three stage Competitive Dialogue
• Design work and all aspects of planning applications for both initial temporary training facility and 3,600 sq m of permanent facilities
• Successful Olympic National Skills Academy for Construction bid which secured £6 million in LSC capital funding for development of training centre.

Innovacion to produce Statement of Case for proposed DLR extension to Barking and Dagenham

Innovacion have been appointed to draft the Statement of Case for the £500 million Docklands Light Rail extension to Dagenham Dock which succinctly lays out the evidence to be presented by QC and a range of expert witnesses at the Tranpsort and Works Act Public Inquiry in late 2008.

Northern Growth: Next Generation Communities

The city-regions of the North need a new initiative to support economic growth by explicitly addressing housing quality and other important quality of life factors.

One of the great triumphs of the Northern Way initiative has been its ability to challenge conventional thinking about pan-regional economic development in the North of England. The Northern Way’s growth plan has rightly been posing some fundamental questions about how to identify and deliver the necessary supporting infrastructure to generate an additional £30 billion of output for the UK. The ongoing discussion about the most effective type of transport investments post-Eddington is but one of these debates.

Rumfitt A & Bridges T; "Northern Growth: Next Generation Communities" (TCPA July 2007)

Download Next Generation Communities (TCPA July 2007) 

How to engage with small businesses

What is the issue?
Small firms form a key constituency of many local economies.  At a national level, the 1.1 million small firms (with less than 250 employees) and 2.9 million freelancers and sole proprietors provide over 13 million jobs.  So any major redevelopment or regeneration project should involve the many small businesses which together act as a significant economic driver.

Small businesses are generally misunderstood.  Like people they are a pretty heterogeneous group.  While there are common business approaches and attitudes there is also a wide variety of motivations for being in business.  In London over a third are family owned and run businesses.  Rather than purely pursuing profit at all costs, people starting businesses are often looking for autonomy, a way into employment when others routes are closed or for a personal challenge.

Engaging with small businesses is becoming more important.  The increased requirements for consultation under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 mean that understanding how to consult with small businesses is rising up the agenda.  Statements of Community Involvement will need to explain how communities and stakeholders will be engaged in the preparation and revision of local development documents and consideration of planning applications. Involvement should aim to be “active, meaningful and continued throughout both processes” and should include local firms or their representatives.  Furthermore, the start of the Local Authority Business Growth Incentive Scheme in April 2005 will give Local Councils the potential to secure direct financial incentives from promoting local economic growth.

Why engage with small businesses?
Small businesses are interested in their local area.  As they operate locally they have a distinct interest in the local environment and often a good local knowledge that can help professional planners, architects and regeneration professionals in their work.  All will be interacting with the local council, have a high concentration of local employees (who all have votes) and often live nearby with children at local schools.  They invest in the local area, especially if they are freeholders, and their support can be vital for physical and transport developments.  The growing number of Business Improvements Districts (BIDs) have firms paying for and taking control of increased local service provision.

Engagement should also be seen as an insurance policy to prevent poor relations with local businesses.  Freeholding small businesses can landlock a major development.  They can be vocal in the local press.  They can move to other areas taking valuable local jobs and supplier contracts.  They can disengage from regeneration activities (e.g. training and mentoring opportunities).

How to engage with a small business?
You have to start thinking like a small business to appreciate what will concern them.  Firstly, they value clear information to help the sort of decision making they do all day long.  Many of their concerns are due to a lack of information and most are persuadable by reason.  They want to know the timescales of activities to assess how it will affect their business.  Secondly, and this may seem obvious, at the very least between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday to Friday they will be working.  If you want to talk to them or get them to meet don’t take away a great chunk of their working day.  Thirdly, they like action.  They will not understand why something takes weeks to happen let alone months or years.  They have to respond to customers and suppliers rapidly.  That will be their culture.  They won’t sit in meetings that are going nowhere.  Fourthly, they operate on trust and value consistency.  If they say they will do it they mean it.  So non-action from a public organisation suggests the sort of unreliability that makes a small firm nervous.  Lastly, to run a successful small business you will have to be resourceful, tenacious and adaptable.  Respect small businesses for this and avoid being the professional who is lecturing them.

Turn the tables, use their 4 Ps
One of the oldest concepts in marketing is the Four Ps.  Use this approach to engage small firms as “customers”:

Product: What are you offering small firms and what do you want in return?  Do you know enough about your local business base to do this?  Information should be business focussed and clear.  Additional benefits (e.g. the opportunity to network with other local firms) will increase the attraction.

Place: Where and when are you going to do this?  Think in terms of business hours and informal locations that you would like to go at the end of the day (i.e. not a rush-hour crawl across town to a Civic Centre).

Promotion:  How are you going to communicate with your local business base?  Try to understand their preferred and valued communication channels and use them.  This may mean hanging round a café on an industrial estate or using an intermediary organisation.

Price:  Do you understand the financial costs and benefits of a development or a regeneration project for the local businesses?  Small firms’ fear of CPO may come from a lack of knowledge.  Once this is overcome they tend to be happy to negotiate as they do that all the time.

Case Study: Tottenham Hale
North London Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the London Borough of Haringey have been engaging small businesses to ensure they are involved in a proposed 138 ha development around Tottenham Hale in North London.  To do this North London Chamber of Commerce has acted as a neutral but informed business intermediary between businesses and the public sector.  There are significant advantages in both directions.  The local businesses have been helped by having a co-ordinating organisation to listen to their concerns, run a series of business friendly events and provide clear information.  The local authority and their professional advisers have the advantage of being able to engage with an existing business group, gain an understanding of the local business base and to develop productive working relationships.